


Ransom

by EliraWinter



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Non-Dreamshare, Stockholm Syndrome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-15
Updated: 2012-08-15
Packaged: 2017-11-12 04:40:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/486798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EliraWinter/pseuds/EliraWinter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eames is part of a group of thugs who kidnap Arthur, son of a wealthy business tycoon, and hold him hostage while they wait for their payday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ransom

The rough, hessian bag is ripped away from Arthur’s face, making him hiss as it scrapes over his nose and catches on his ears.  A man strides away from him with the bag and Arthur takes in his surroundings – he appears to be in a bedroom, back propped against the bed.  There’s a bedside table on the other side of the bed, but other than that, the room is bare.  Arthur’s white dress shirt is crumpled, grey tie loose and askew and one of his trouser cuffs is ragged.  His ribs ache – someone had punched him before they’d knocked him out – and his eyes are bleary.

With a small groan, Arthur tries to stand up but his hands are tied and he keels over.  His head hits the carpet with a _thunk_ and the next instant, large warm hands are cradling him and he’s being hefted onto the soft surface of the bed.  The hands arrange him into the recovery position and Arthur opens his eyes again.

 

A bulky man plops himself down on the bed next to Arthur, resting his elbows on his knees and fiddling with a toothpick that makes a dent in his full lips.  He’s wearing a black beanie, fingerless gloves, a fleece hoodie and Arthur can see – and likes, oh, he _likes_ – the broad slope of his shoulders, the bulge of his biceps and the strong line of his jaw.  Arthur wants to present his neck so the man can rub his stubble all over it, then promptly gives himself a mental slap as he remembers that this is one of the men who _kidnapped_ him.  Arthur hates his life.

 

“Are you alright, there?” he asks in a deep voice with an English accent, brows creasing with something akin to concern.

“As alright as I can be, considering I’ve been kidnapped,” Arthur says.

“Ah.”  There’s a hush and Arthur catches the sound of people murmuring outside and the scrape of moving furniture.

“I’m Eames,” the guy pipes up, twirling the toothpick around his fingers.

“Is that your real name?” Arthur asks.  Eames grins.

“You’re smart, aren’t you, darling?” Eames says, standing up.  “And here I was thinking that we’d picked up some sheltered little rich boy.”

“I’m not stupid, _Eames_ ,” Arthur snaps, sitting up and suppressing a wince.  “And there’s no need to be so condescending with me.  I know what you want and I know why I’m here.  Just give me a phone and I’ll call my father so you can negotiate.”

Eames cocks his head to the side, scrutinising Arthur as if he were a particularly annoying puzzle to be solved, before he saunters over to the door and knocks a few times.

“Showtime, boys.”

 

\--

 

The door opens and two men walk in.  One is tall and stringy with a nervous look about him, sweating slightly, while the other is clad in a sharp three-piece suit and is completely expressionless.  The suited man hands a nondescript Nokia phone to Eames, who turns to look at Arthur.

“Now, Arthur,” Eames purrs.  “Please cooperate, or this could get messy.  What’s your father’s personal phone number?”  Arthur sighs and tells him, while Eames input the numbers into the phone and holds it to his ear.  The room is silent, now, and Arthur can hear the dial tone and then the sound of his father’s voice.

_This is David Penn, who’s speaking?_

“Greetings, Mr Penn,” Eames says in a smooth voice – his accent is American, now.  “We have your son and won’t hesitate to rough up his pretty little face.  We would like to discuss the terms of his release.”  There was a short, tense pause.

_How do I know you really have him?_

“Here he is,” Eames says, putting the phone on speaker and holding it by Arthur’s mouth.

 _…Arthur?  
_ “Yeah, I’m here.”

 _Are you alright?  
_ “As well as I can be in these circumstances.”

_I do not negotiate with criminals.  I’ll send people to get you, Arthur._

“Father - ”

_Behave._

The line cuts off as Arthur’s father hangs up and Arthur slumps, face burning.  His father had treated him like a _child_ (and wasn’t that different from normal, hah), as if he wasn’t in the hands of kidnappers who’d hurt him just for money.  As if he didn’t care, and now that Arthur was relying on his father to get him out of this, the dismissiveness cut deep.

 

“Eames, fix him up and join us outside,” the suited man growls, glaring at Arthur before herding the nervous man out with him.  Eames tucked the phone into his pocket and sighed.

“Not the greatest relationship with daddy, then, hmm?”

“You could say that,” Arthur mutters.  All his life, he’d done his best to live up to his father’s expectations, choosing a career path that would prepare him for taking over the company (really, he wanted to be an architect and be the logic behind works of art that people could look at and be _inspired_ ) and going out with women (when, really, he wanted a man, a man with muscles and charm to sweep him off his feet).  Eames was looking at him with something akin to pity.

 

“I know all about that,” he says.  “Roll over onto your belly for me, I’ll unbind your hands.”  Arthur hesitates for a moment until Eames raises an eyebrow.  “You know that I don’t need your cooperation but it’ll be much easier for both of us if you comply, Arthur.”  Arthur sighs and rolls over dutifully, feeling the tug of Eames’ fingers on the rope around his wrists.  “Over onto your back now, arms above your head.”  Arthur stretches his arms out, hearing his back crack and grind, then sees Eames dangling a pair of metal handcuffs.  He blanches and Eames shrugs.

 

“I know it’s awfully cliché to handcuff you to the bed, Arthur, but at least you’ll be comfortable.”  Eames climbed up onto the mattress and kneels beside Arthur, threading the cuffs through the bars at the head of the bed then fastening them around Arthur’s wrists.  The metal is cool against his skin and Eames grips his forearms for a moment, tugging to make sure he was secure.

“Good.  I’ll be outside, then, you should get some rest.  Call me if you need me.”  He grins and Arthur flushes.

“Are you like this with all your hostages?”

Eames laughs and lays his big hand on Arthur’s cheek.

“Of course not, darling,” he smiles.  “Just you.”

\--

 

The door opens, startling Arthur out of his half-asleep doze, and he rolls over to find Expressionless poking a gun into his ribs.

“We’re just going to send a little message to your daddy,” he says, moving the gun away to point it at Arthur’s thigh.  Arthur tenses in anticipation, breaths speeding up into a frenzy, feeling a scream beginning to plug up his throat.

“Wait, Jesus Christ, Jones!” Eames snaps, rushing in and shoving the gun away so that it points at the floor instead of Arthur.  “You can’t shoot him, he might die; even from a wound to the leg, you never know, and then where would we be?  How about you just let me rough him up a bit?”

“What do you mean, rough him up?” Nervous asks.

“I’ll just…make it look as if things have happened, hmm?” Eames says, then his hands were at Arthur’s trousers, unbuttoning them and pulling them off his hips.

“Oh, God,” Arthur breathes, realising what Eames wants to do.  “Oh my God.  Oh my God.  Please, please, don’t, please!”  He starts to struggle, kicking out at Eames – who grunts when Arthur’s heel slams into his ribs – and the handcuffs are digging harshly into the skin of his wrists.

“Shut up,” Jones says, and promptly bashes Arthur in the face with the butt of the gun, then drives his fist into Arthur’s nose.  Arthur hears something crack, blood beginning to run from somewhere and there’s sharp pain in his cheekbone and nose and he feels woozy. 

“That works, too,” Eames mutters.  There’s the dull click of a camera then the slam of the door.

Arthur coughs up some blood and passes out.

 

\--

 

Someone coaxes him into a sitting position, wipes his mouth off, presses the opening of a water bottle to his lips.

 

\--

 

There’s something cold, soft and gentle on his face and he’s on a stretcher, now, with a paramedic cleaning the blood off his skin.

“Shh,” she says, “You’re safe.  You’re OK.”  He thinks he hears his father in the background but it hurts to move his head.

 

\--

 

“I won’t let you go back to your apartment, Arthur,” his father says.  “It’s too dangerous, even with the police monitoring it.  I’ll buy you a new one.”

“Can I get my things?” Arthur asks, thinking longingly of his suits and the leftover soup in his fridge, his laptop, the fountain pen his mother gave him when he graduated.

“I’m having them transferred.”

“Thank you.”  Arthur shifts underneath the blankets and his father pauses at the doorway, turns and looks back at him.

“Arthur, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry that this happened.  I’m sorry I couldn’t be there sooner.”

“It’s alright, Dad,” Arthur says.  His father nods jerkily and leaves.  Arthur sleeps.

 

\--

  
He isn’t overly traumatised about it all, apart from the new shape of his nose in the mirror, but sometimes he dreams.  He imagines Eames standing over him, running those thick fingers over his cheekbone, laying a kiss on his lips and whispering _sorry_ before putting a bullet cleanly through his skull.

His father hasn’t told him whether they caught his kidnappers.

 

\--

 

When Arthur can get out of bed and find his father, he asks what happened, and is completely unprepared for the answer.

“It’s a very delicate situation, Arthur,” he says.  “I was all for having them arrested and sentenced straight away, but apparently the police have a sting going on and that was merely one facet of the organisation they’re targeting.  One of the men was undercover; he tipped us off and then hightailed it out of there with the other two criminals.  He managed to save you, as well as their whole operation.”

“Do you know…do you know which man it was?  The policeman?”

“His name’s Sergeant Ridley Scott, that’s all they could tell me.”  Arthur wonders who it was.  “Arthur, do you need…do you need someone to talk to?”

“You think I have PTSD or something?  I was there for, what, two days at the maximum, and the worst I got was a punch in the face.” Arthur says.  His father shakes his head, looks away uncomfortably, and it clicks.  “ _Stockholm Syndrome_?”  Arthur’s shocked that his father would think that and then is even more shocked with himself because it might be an accurate diagnosis.

“Let me know, then, Arthur.”  His father is looking straight at him, looking closely for once in his life, and maybe this time he _sees_.  Arthur nods and goes back to bed.

 

\--

 

Arthur stops thinking about Eames.

He tries, anyway.

 

\--

 

Does it count as Stockholm Syndrome if Eames was the undercover cop?

And why is he even hung up on this?  Just because Eames gave him a few words of kindness, was gentler, personable, handsome…

 

\--

 

Three months later, Arthur’s studying architecture and instead of sporadic phone calls, he sees his father during the week and has dinner with him on Saturdays.  It’s better, and Arthur’s happy; he has new friends who push him to make things, fulfil his potential and his dad’s supporting him instead of pressuring.

It’s a Saturday night and Arthur’s at his dad’s house eating the spaghetti Bolognese that they cooked together.  Arthur is telling David about his ideas for redesigning one of the company buildings and they’re discussing time frames when the doorbell rings.

“You’re expecting company?” Arthur asks, raising an eyebrow.

“I wouldn’t do that,” David frowns.  “Wait here, alright?  I’ll see who it is.”  Arthur shrugs and keeps eating – it’s probably an urgent business letter or something of the like.  It’s about five minutes until he hears his dad calling his name.  He reluctantly leaves his spaghetti and makes his way to the door, freezing when he sees who’s outside.

It’s Eames, but not black-clad-thug Eames; it’s Eames in a clean-cut policeman’s uniform, shiny dark boots, a gun tucked into a holster at his waist, hands clasped behind his back respectfully.  When he sees Arthur, he makes a movement as if to grin that roguish grin, but he restrains himself and bows his head instead.

“Mr Penn, I’m glad to see that you’re well,” he says.  His accent’s like a little embrace but _Mr Penn_ sounds wrong on his tongue.

“Are you Ridley Scott?” Arthur asks, moving forward to stand just behind David who is still half-blocking the doorway defensively.  Eames winces.

“Ridley EamesScott,” he says.  “I grew up being called Eames and when I came to America I had everyone call me by my surname.  It was helpful to have another name on hand when I was chosen for the operation.”  Arthur smiles and his dad gives Eames one last searching glance, before he clasps Arthur’s shoulder and leaves the two alone.

“Why are you here?” Arthur says bluntly.

“I wanted…” Eames pauses, running his hand through his cropped, light brown hair.  “I wanted to see you again.  To make sure that you were alright.  I never meant for any of that to happen to you.”

“I’m okay,” Arthur murmurs.  “I just, I had to find out who saved me.  Now I know that you did.”

“Darling,” Eames says.  He steps forward cautiously and when Arthur leans closer, Eames lays a hand on his shoulder, smoothing the palm over his sweater before clasping the back of his neck.  “Darling.  I’m so sorry.”

“I’m alright, I’m okay, really,” Arthur says, moving closer and burying his face into Eames’ neck.  “I wanted you.  I wanted you and I didn’t know if you were a criminal or not and it was killing me, but I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”  Eames’ arms fold around him, warm and grounding, kisses falling like forgiveness onto his forehead.

“Arthur, darling, you’re safe, shhh,” Eames whispers, clutching him closer.  Arthur’s crying now and he’s not sure why, he hasn’t cried for years, but something about Eames and knowing he’s the good guy and knowing he’s here just makes him let go.  His breaths are hiccupping in his throat and he feels exhausted and peaceful and sheltered.  “Let’s get you inside, shall we?” Eames says gently, and Arthur laughs a little because this must be his policeman voice, the voice he uses to calm victims and children and it works.

Arthur lets himself be led inside and snuggled onto a couch.  While his dad goes to get him a cup of tea, Eames shuffles closer and rests a heavy hand on his cheek and it’s warm and comforting and Arthur sighs contentedly.

“Arthur,” Eames says.

“Yeah?”

Eames leans in and plants a soft kiss on Arthur’s lips.

“I want you, too.” __

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by wegodownwiththeship's[](http://wegodownwiththeship.tumblr.com/post/27822718562/arthur-eames-au-ransom-in-which-eames-is-part) prompt on tumblr.
> 
> I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED  
> this was going to be all light and smutty  
> but then I realised that it was Stockholm Syndrome and I made it angsty  
> what have I done
> 
> and what even is the ending I don't know  
> anyway I hope you all enjoyed it, please excuse this rambly note because I actually have no idea what my brain did.


End file.
